Nukes agency head says Iran ‘steadily’ enriching uranium

Iran continues to produce a steady supply of enriched uranium, despite a cyber attack believed to have originated in Israel, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog group said.

In an interview with The Washington Post published Monday, Yukia Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that Iran is producing uranium enriched to 3.5 and 20 percent “steadily, constantly.”

Iran has more than 6,600 pounds of enriched uranium and it continues to stockpile, despite U.N. Security Council resolutions that order it to stop.

Amano said she does not know how much of the uranium Iran needs to build a nuclear bomb.

The IAEA is “not sure” if Iran is “hiding something,” she said, explaining that the Islamic Republic is asked to “declare” its nuclear activities, and there is no telling what it is doing outside of the declarations.

Amano told the Post that the IAEA needs “more access, better cooperation from Iran and better implementation of the rules.”

“I am not against Iran. I just want everyone to respect and implement rules,” she said.

Meanwhile, a new report released Feb. 11 by the computer security software firm Symantec says that the Stuxnet software worm, widely believed to have been released by Israel, attempted to infect five Iranian nuclear facilities over 10 months in three waves of attacks.

The worm, designed to destroy Iran’s nuclear centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear reactor, was believed to have set back Iran’s nuclear program by several months or years.

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